Insurance Worries Halt Trauma Plan

August 29, 1987|By BEVERLY STRACHER, Staff Writer

HOLLYWOOD -- Residents hoping that Memorial Hospital will become a regional trauma center will have a long wait.

``Because of the malpractice (insurance) crisis, all plans to go forward have basically been held in abeyance,`` said Dr. Richard Dellerson, emergency room chief at Memorial. ``The risks of liability are too great in that type of setting.``

To become a high-level trauma center, similar to Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami, a hospital has to meet certain state and national requirements such as having surgeons, anesthesiologists and operating room staff available 24 hours a day.

The 737-bed hospital already treats the majority of south Broward patients with complicated, life-threatening cases, Dellerson said. About 50,000 patients a year are treated in the emergency room, which generally operates as a level-two trauma center, he said.

Trauma patients are usually victims of stabbings, shootings and automobile accidents.

In 1985, the South Broward Hospital District tentatively had agreed to a trauma center concept. The district board, which governs Memorial, delayed applying to the state until the hospital could install a helicopter landing pad.

After two years of legal battles with the city of Hollywood, a compromise was reached to install a heliport atop a planned parking garage at Memorial.

Now that the heliport issue is resolved, there is still no trauma center in the works.

``The greatest element to the prevention of trauma care today is the outrageous and obscene malpractice (insurance) rates for those specialities,`` said state Rep. Fred Lippman, D-Hollywood. ``Until you take care of malpractice, you`re not going to have trauma-care centers in Broward County.``

Hollywood Memorial has physicians and surgeons on 24-hour call, while Jackson Memorial, with a level-one designation, requires its emergency room to be continuously staffed.

Doctors on call at Memorial`s emergency room are required to respond within 15 to 20 minutes, Dellerson said.

The ideal situation for south Broward residents would be for Memorial to operate as a level-one trauma center, he said.

Memorial could improve its reputation and make more money if it received such a designation from the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, he said.

``The real advantage of being a designated trauma center is that it`s like anything else: the more you do the better you get,`` Dellerson said. ``When you`re receiving all the major trauma in an area, you`re going to get better and better instead of diluting that kind of care at other facilities.``

Plantation General Hospital became the first designated trauma center in Broward in January 1986. Although it was a level-three center, Plantation General was seeking other hospitals to help form a trauma network in the county.

Ten months later, the hospital withdrew its designation.

``We were standing out there bare and we weren`t able to have the support we needed to continue,`` said Anita Young, spokeswoman for Plantation General.